Virus Outbreak

The sky was cloudy and the sun has completely set. The junction of Outercity and Undercity had streetlights but it was not enough to light up the natural darkness of the sky.

Though electricity was cheap, the houses and buildings were dimly lit like this part of the town doesn't want to have visitors.

Alex slipped the AetherCorp ID into the lining of his jacket, pressing it flat against the fabric to keep it hidden.

He glanced around the dim alley, ensuring no one was watching, and adjusted the Nexus hub on his wrist.

He sneakily picked up his ID and hub device while grabbing his suitcase earlier.

As for his earbuds, it fell off when he got thrown at the floor and saw it destroyed when domeone stepped on it on the aisle.

Though he acted as sneaky as he could, he knew Sigma saw him taking these items but doesn't care enough to point it out.

The reboot cycle was slow, the faint hum of the device filling the tense silence.

While walking away, his Pulse-Stabilizer Implant finally stopped regulating his vitals and returned to normal operations. It did a great job keeping him level-headed while he was surrounded.

Alex felt slightly exhausted while sweat appeared all over his body as PsiCore-X5 slowly went into standby mode.

"I need to eat something." Alex muttered as energy left his body.

The event earlier was the first time he had to use all his bionics implants at the same time causing a huge drain on energy after it all ended.

The NAI-7 helped increase his decision making process while the Optix-V2 helped with AR overlay, tracking objects and the environment.

Though he got surrounded earlier, he didn't feel worried considering the tight area he was in. Those thugs can't gang up on him and he could deflect any blunt attacks with his bionic arm.

Sigma was literally a life saver since the shotgun was the one thing he couldn't do anything about.

Running wasn't an option, so he chose to take advantage of their numbers and use them as cover, to prevent Kerrik from using his shotgun.

Alex was prepared to fight dirty and sacrifice his natural handsome face in that fight.

Except for the SIP-8, which is mostly used for accessing, connecting and controlling machines, every bionic he had was running at full power at the time.

His slow movements and poor execution was a sight only seen with desperate people backed into a corner.

Well, he never specialized in combat, so a sneak attack was the most viable method in which he failed.

Alex found a vending machine on the street. He clicked on a soda and a random chips before swiping his wrist on the scanner.

A crisp beep sounded.

"Error: Unable to locate hub profile. Please try again."

Before Alex could try again, the Nexus hub device lit up and turn to life.

"System initializing... Welcome to Nexus OS," a flat, robotic voice chimed from the hub.

"About time," Alex muttered under his breath. He swiped the device on the scanner but it still got declined.

"Error: Unable to verify unauthorized transaction.

Alex grew disappointed.

He looked left and right, making sure no one was looking. He swiped his wrist and his food fell down the machine.

"I'll pay them back double once the Nexus is back up." Alex muttered in his heart as he tore the packaging and poured the chips into his mouth. After munching a few times, he quenched himself by taking big gulps of the soda.

After eating, the voice function returned on the hub device.

"Hello, Alex! This is Sparc, your virtual assistant. How can I assist you today?"

"Great. You're in idiot mode," Alex snapped, already annoyed. He tapped the hub's interface impatiently. "First thing, check for local taxi stations or just directly call a cab into my position. "

"Initializing... Error: This feature is unavailable in offline mode. Attempting to connect to a local network... Failed. No public network available. Would you like me to try and connect to your neural nodes to access your memory in search for local taxi stations."

"What? No, forget about it." Alex interrupted Sparc in frustration. "Don't pull a fast one on me. This is the first time we came here, so you won't find anything even if I let you in. Also, I don't like it when we're connected. I feel so mechanical with everything being so precise."

"I detect elevated stress levels, Alex. Would you like a mindfulness exercise?" Sparc's voice suggested.

Alex groaned, running a hand through his hair. "You're ignoring that, huh. How about you reboot yourself back to something useful?"

Before Sparc could respond, a scream split the air, sharp and guttural.

Alex froze, his head snapping toward the street beyond the alley.

More screams followed, punctuated by the crack of gunfire.

"What the heck is going on?" Alex muttered, stepping cautiously toward the edge of the alley. Sparc's voice buzzed faintly on his wrist.

"Analysis: auditory anomalies detected. Recommendation: maintain distance."

Alex ignored the advice, peeking out from behind the corner.

The street was chaos.

A group of people—wild-eyed, ragged, and moving with terrifying speed—were attacking anyone in sight. Their movements were jerky, almost mechanical, as they lunged at their victims with knives in their

hands.

The first responders—panicked civilians —tried to wrestle the attackers down, disarming them and pleading for calm.

"Stop! You're hurting people! Just stop!"

But the attackers were relentless, clawing, biting, slashing. Blood spilled onto the asphalt, and the screams grew louder.

One man managed to tackle an assailant to the ground, pinning it down. He took the knife away and pointed it at the man's nape.

The tackled man didn't let a knife behind him stop his movement. He moved erratically and had blood pouring from their wounded nape.

After escaping from getting pinned, the bloodied man lunged forward sinking their teeth into the man's throat.

The man gargled a scream, flailing wildly as his own blood painted the ground.

When the crazy man stopped biting him, the unfortunate civilian was already dead from blood loss.

A few seconds later, he twisted unnaturally and got up. His eyes red and bulging looking around for prey.

The sight sent a ripple of terror through the crowd.

Someone inside the adjacent building shouted, "It's some kind of virus! The dead are coming back! I knew this will happen one day!"

The man closed the window his watching from and went back inside his room. Moments later, every door and window was blocked by criss-crossing metallic bars.

That was all it took for a full-blown panic to spread.

The tone of the crowd shifted in an instant. Fury turned to fear, and desperation gave way to survival instincts.

Civilians who had been trying to disarm the attackers now turned to lethal measures.

A woman armed with a tire iron swung with all her strength, caving in the head of a

charging assailant.

A man with a shotgun stepped forward, firing point-blank into another.

Alex backed into the alley, his heart pounding as the sounds of gunfire and desperate screams filled the air. He glanced down at Sparc, the glowing interface of the Nexus hub flickering faintly.

"Alex, would you like me to navigate an escape route?" Sparc asked, its tone still irritatingly chipper.

"Yeah, do that," Alex muttered, his voice tight.

"Error: No maps available... No network connection... Route creation failed."

"...Sparc?"

"Yes, Alex?"

"Switch to auxiliary mode and turn off suggestions."